Yesterday was another magical day. After conquering my Must-Do List for the weekend, I sequestered myself in my office, posted my Do Not Disturb sign, pulled out napkins, receipts, stray scraps of paper, the notes on my phone, and began my work. The story’s timeline filtered through first. Last week, a central figure divulged a shocking backstory that illuminated his motivations and created a natural tension with my principal character. This stage of the game is a handwriting marathon. I used bright yellow oversized pieces of paper and scribbling as quickly as possible.

A set of family trees are emerging, along with rough maps, floor plans, scheming plots, and treacherous conspiracies. Follow-up questions are circled and highlighted, arrows and asterisk populate the pages. When I reached the end of one sheet, I often forgot to include the oh so helpful page numbers on subsequent pages. I noticed I was having a tough time reading my previous sentence and discovered the sun had sunk below the horizon. A short recess allowed for an invigorating stretch, a hot cup of coffee, and better lighting, before returning to my interviews.

I could only handle four hours of grueling transcription before my hand refused to hold my pen any longer. We have barely scratched the surface. I need more knowledge of their world, answers to individual impulses and desires, and the scoop on the juicy intrigue. The cast is much larger than I ever imagined, and my characters continually reference kingdoms, regions, facts, and details I didn’t know existed. They inundated me with information, and it is more epic than the story I intended to write, but I am recording every bit. I am clueless about my actual word count, but I will transcribe everything into a word document in the next few days.

No matter the challenges and the obstacles blocking my way, I maintain the item at the top of my list as a non-negotiable. Yesterday I wrote 380 (countable) words.

Did you write yesterday?

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Keep on writing.

Jo Hawk The Writer